On Friendstership

I can't believe I'm writing about Friendster.com. In fact, I can't believe I'm on Friendster.com. Every single time I think about it, it seems even stupider than the last time I considered its existence. But you know what? I don't care anymore. I'm gonna write about Friendster because it's fascinating, no matter how many hipsters tell me it's over. And I'm gonna stay on Friendster because it's the most awe-inspiring cultural entity since Van Halen II. I concede that Friendster is ridiculous and unnecessary, but there is also something perfect about it. There is something advanced about it. We can understand people more effectively through the fake world of Friendster than we can through the tangible world of reality, which is why we needed the Internet in the first place.

There are only two million users on Friendster as I type these words, so some of you will have no idea what it even is. That's fine. Don't get nervous. You don't need to know about any of this. Feel free to turn to page 77 and read about Adam West. Unless you've been actively absorbed into the Cult of Friendster, it will undoubtedly seem like just another ephemeral pop fad you're trying to miss on purpose (kind of like flash mobs, or ketamine, or marriage). It's ostensibly a dating service (you meet potential dates through people your friends already know), but almost no one who's normal uses it in that capacity. Most Friendsters aren't trying to meet anyone they don't already know; they're just trying to reinvent themselves exactly as they already are, only more so. Friendster is not an extension of life; it's a validation that life is actually in progress.

Here is the experience most people have with Friendster: For a few weeks, they hear their colleagues discussing something that seems to make no sense. They hear sardonic buzzwords bandied about in the bathroom and around the Xerox machine. They start getting e-mails that seem like spam, except the messages mention acquaintances by name. And then people start incessantly asking them if they are on Friendster. "I'm not retarded," they inevitably respond. "Why would I waste my time with that shit?" They vow never to join. Everyone does this (at least for a while).

However, there's something inescapably sticky about Friendster, and it's purely linguistic: the word itself. For reasons that remain unclear, it's somehow pleasurable to say the word Friendster aloud. It's like combining friend with monster. I am certain that the selection of the word Friendster is the single biggest key to its success, because eventually you need to join Friendster just to keep referencing it in conversation. And once you make that commitment, it's over. For the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, you think of nothing else. Friendster is both instantly and temporarily addictive, which is part of the reason it reminds me of being alive. I feel the same way about 90 percent of the women I've ever met.

"In real life, people wouldn't want to go to a party where everyone was desperate," says Jonathan Abrams, the thirty-three-year-old Canadian egomaniac who created Friendster. "They want to meet people through people they already know. I wanted to create a way for people to meet over the Internet that was more like real life."

Abrams's suggestion that meeting on Friendster is "like real life" is remarkably accurate, inasmuch as the people you encounter online are lying. Or at least they're lying about the things they seem to find unimportant, such as their appearance, their interests, and their relationship status. (Unless Friendster is reflecting something about society I'm missing, it seems unlikely that 30 percent of the U.S. populace would classify themselves as part of an "open marriage.") Yet weirdly, there are some elements of the Friendster personal profile that no one seems to lie about, most notably what TV shows they like. Friendsters seem totally comfortable with strangers assuming they cheat on their wives and sketch portraits of unicorns in their free time, but they don't want anyone to think they watch According to Jim unironically. This is similar to how a person will have oral sex with you on your very first date but won't let you look inside her glove compartment at the moment because it contains a Tori Amos cassette. True signposts of self-identity--especially for anyone born after 1970--tend to be the most trivial things we adore, which is why Friendster is so popular. It allows us to build two-dimensional personalities in which we can eradicate the things that matter to others (our looks, our sincerity, our intelligence, et cetera) while accentuating the things that matter only to us (whether or not we can quote Glengarry Glen Ross, whether or not we can communicate telepathically with our cat, whether or not we want to pretend that we read Finnegans Wake, et cetera). Our entire corporeality is dictated by what we think is interesting about ourselves.

However, this vehicle for self-creation is only half of what makes Friendster so brilliant (and not even the important half). What's accidentally amazing about Friendster is how its flaws make it more human. For those unfamiliar with the site, the big draw within the Friendster universe is the testimonial, in which other Friendsters post enthusiastic endorsements of your relative awesomeness. This is very much like scribbling in someone's yearbook, except there is no obligation to mention how you are totally going to party together this summer.

Now, some people really, really get into testimonial writing. These Friendsters will embrace any opportunity to gush; this is how they make themselves feel comfortable. You meet these people in real life, too. Every time they introduce you to someone new, they make a big production about how much they like you and how cool you supposedly are. Yet inevitably these outspoken proponents are the peeps you can rely on the least. It has been my experience that social sycophants who are overtly "pro-Chuck" in casual conversation always disappear at crunch time; the people I can trust the most tend to remain more stoic about our relationship. There is an inverse relationship between public adoration and personal reliability.

This is also true on Friendster. Or, more accurately, it's also true of Friendster. Every time I've ever needed to get on Friendster, the entire site was down. I could not log on. Like many people, Friendster has no problem telling you how amazing and sexy and clever you are when you really don't care, but it might be arbitrarily unresponsive at the singular moment when you desperately need a connection. Friendster is the Paris Hilton of online-interface beta versions; Friendster can be one coldhearted bitch.

Abrams wouldn't tell me how many users join Friendster each week (he said this was for "competitive reasons"), but he did say he was Friendster's first friend when the system went up last March. Things took off pretty rapidly from there. The site hit one million users in three months and had doubled to two million by mid-autumn. If Friendster's growth continues at this pace, my math indicates that the entire planet will be on the site in less than forty-six months. I can't wait. At long last, the earth will be united. The lion shall sleep with the lamb; Rumsfeld will be writing testimonials for Chirac; Van Halen will stage a reunion tour and open its show with "D. O. A." Now--obviously--all of these people will be fabricating every sentiment they emote, and our entire cybertopia will be one massive lie. What we have will not be real. But at least we'll have something. And we'll have it in the spirit of Friendstership.

A Heavy Read

Daniel Bukszpan's The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal (Barnes & Noble Books, $20) is the second-heaviest book I've ever read. Now, this is no reflection whatsoever on its contents; at 4 pounds, 7.6 ounces, it literally has the second-greatest mass of any tome I've ever had to carry. (The heaviest was 1994's KIS Story, a coffee-table book that was promoted as "weighing nine pounds," just in case you are one of those people who buy books with the intention of crushing rodents.) Sadly, I'm not sure who this oddly punctuated encyclopedia is supposed to appeal to, since most metal fans are either a) completely informed about every detail of every band they've ever liked, or b) getting drunk and rereading The Hobbit. Bukszpan's opinions are a tad sketchy (he consistently uses the modifier unquestionably about highly questionable things), and he's one of those guys who believes bands like Celtic Frost were better than bands like Poison, apparently because Celtic Frost sang about blood and snow. Still, this 300-page opus is worth checking out, and here's why: page 12. On page 12, there is a photograph of Ronnie James Dio holding a crystal ball, and it's just about the most awesome thing I've ever seen. This almost makes up for the fact that Bukszpan never mentions the Vinnie Vincent Invasion. Not even once. --C. K.

Chuck Klosterman is the author of many fine books, including Chuck Klosterman IV which is available at your local bookstore or online, at BarnesAndNoble.com.

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